I'd rather see Big Mamie in AH
BB59 USS Massachusetts (South Dakota class)
Commishioned: May 1942
Battleship Massachusetts BB-59
The USS Massachusetts is one of four WWII South Dakota Class Battleships. BB-59's specifications are:
Length: 680 feet
Beam: 108 feet
Draught: 26 feet 9 inches
Crew: 2,500
Displacement: 35,000 tons (42,000 tons fully loaded)
Max Speed: 30kts (35mph)
Fuel Capacity: 7,000 tons of fuel oil
Armament:
9 16" 50 cal.
20 5" 38 cal.
68 40mm Bofors AA
40 20mm Oerlikon AA
Aircraft: 3 Vought Kingfisher Seaplanes with 2 Catapults
Armor: 16" at the sides
Power Plant: 8 oil fired boilers powering geared steam turbines driving 4 screws with 130,000 Shaft Horsepower
Launching Date: September 23, 1941 at the Bethlehem Steel Company Quincy, MA
Brief Operational History:
Following her shakedown period Battleship Massachusetts went into action on November 8, 1942 as part of Operation Torch, the invasion of North Africa. While cruising off the city of Casablanca, Morocco, the Battleship engaged in a gun duel with the unfinished French battleship Jean Bart, moored at a Casablanca pier. In this battle, Massachusetts fired the first American 16" projectile in anger of World War II. Five hits from Big Mamie silenced the enemy battleship, and other 16" shells from Battleship Massachusetts helped sink two destroyers, two merchant ships, a floating dry-dock, and heavily damaged buildings and docks in Casablanca.
Big Mamie's 16" guns pounded Iwo Jima and Okinawa before those islands were invaded in 1945, and by July of that year she was off Japan with the Third Fleet. The Battleship bombarded the Imperial Iron and Steel Works at Kamaishi, and then sailed south to bombard a factory at Hamamatsu. Returning to Kamaishi, Battleship Massachusetts fired the last American 16" projectile of the war.
From:http://www.battleshipcove.org/bb59-history.htm and
http://www.williammaloney.com/Aviation/BattleshipUSSMassachusetts/index.htm